


Nutcrackers and Queens

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Category: Disney - All Media Types, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Clara thinks about Philip, F/M, Mr Stahlbaum is the original Nutcracker, Parallels, Philip's make up was the best part of this movie, also she should've kissed him, fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 04:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16611806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: Her father smiles and there’s a glow on his cheeks, in his eyes, like gold dusted on his skin and Clara dances and twirls in his arms, her key heavy against her sternum. This is the first song we ever danced to, he’d said, his voice heavy and rough and Clara felt like she’d looked at him, with all her mind and all her heart, for the first time in years. The music box plays softly and the snowflakes settle on her skin and in her hair, her siblings shrieking with joy around them.Clara closes her eyes and thinks of Phillip.Phillip, with gold flecks on his skin, his mouth ever smiling, his hands outstretched towards her, how his voice fits against her name, his skin dark against the snow around him. Phillip, who had looked at her and offered her his world, his trust, had trusted a mouse on her word alone. Phillip, ever worried, his sabre outstretched and steady despite the fear glinting in his eyes. Phillip, who jumped after her, Phillip, who had stayed with her through her panic and her doubts. Wonderful, beautiful Phillip.





	Nutcrackers and Queens

Her father smiles and there’s a glow on his cheeks, in his eyes, like gold dusted on his skin and Clara dances and twirls in his arms, her key heavy against her sternum. _This is the first song we ever danced to_ , he’d said, his voice heavy and rough and Clara felt like she’d looked at him, with all her mind and all her heart, for the first time in years. The music box plays softly and the snowflakes settle on her skin and in her hair, her siblings shrieking with joy around them.

Clara closes her eyes and thinks of Phillip.

Phillip, with gold flecks on his skin, his mouth ever smiling, his hands outstretched towards her, how his voice fits against her name, his skin dark against the snow around him. Phillip, who had looked at her and offered her his world, his trust, had trusted a mouse on her word alone. Phillip, ever worried, his sabre outstretched and steady despite the fear glinting in his eyes. Phillip, who jumped after her, Phillip, who had stayed with her through her panic and her doubts. Wonderful, _beautiful_ Phillip.

“Thank you”, her father says and kisses the top of her head. “Thank you for this dance, my dear.” Clara opens her eyes and smiles at him, her father and his skin that seems to shimmer, here. She curtsies and Fritz bursts into laughter, the full voiced, full hearted laughter of a boy with cookie crumbs on his cheeks and all the world’s truths on his tongue. Louise next to him ducks her head, a smile on her lips, and brings her hand up to cover her mouth. And when their father, in his solemn grief, starts laughing too, softly and somewhere deep in his throat, Clara can feel her own laughter tingling her spine and bubbling over her lips.

 

* * *

 

 

“Clara?” Her sister’s voice is even and soft, as it always is, never louder than the wind chimes in Fritz’ room, ever quiet and sweet. “Can I ask you something?” Clara, who has closed her eyes when her sister started undoing her hair, pulling pin after pin from it until it falls open and flowing on her shoulders, hums and opens her eyes. She looks at Louise, who still hasn’t undone her hair or opened her dress, through the mirror. She’s the image of their mother, with her back straight and a soft smile on her lips.

“What do you want to ask me?”

Louise clicks with her tongue as she unweaves the band from Clara’s hair with careful fingers. “You went to talk to godfather tonight, didn’t you?” Her brows are furrowed, her eyes trained on the back of Clara’s head.

Clara shrugs. “Why would I pass up an opportunity to talk to godfather?” She doesn’t mention the key on her necklace, doesn’t mention Phillip or Mother Ginger or the Sugar Plum Fairy. She is still untangling all this mess and all this red herself, there’s no need to talk to Louise about porcelain dolls or nutcrackers or mice. “I adore him.”

Louise sighs. “So do I, but – Clara, whatever did he tell you? I was sure you wouldn’t dance with father tonight and here you are, laughing, when even just a few hours ago I thought I wouldn’t see you smile for a long while.”

Clara reaches for the key resting against her chest and grasps it tight, the feeling of metal cool against her skin. “He showed me a machine he couldn’t finish”, she says and Louise looks up to meet her eyes, “I helped him.” Louise’s hands in her hair still, and Clara smiles. “And when I’d finished helping him I suddenly realised that all I’d been thinking of since mother died”, she looks down at the key in her hand, “was me. I didn’t bother asking you, or Fritz, or father how you felt. I assumed none of you were as sad as me because none of you grieved quite how I did. I looked up from this machine and I felt -”, she pauses and looks up again, remembers the Sugar Plum Fairy and all the fury and tears etched into the porcelain of her face, suffocating in all the pink and the frills she’d laced herself in, “I felt so foolish. I don’t know how you feel. Not unless I ask you.” Louise’s lips are trembling, her hands so still in her hair that Clara doesn’t dare move her head. Instead, she looks at her sister, who is still bound into their mother’s favourite dress, her hair in perfectly laid curls on her shoulders. “How do you feel, Louise?”

Tears well up in Louise’s bright eyes and Clara turns around, her arms around her, her own eyes stinging and hot.

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t stop wearing her key, or her music box, keeps the key close to her heart and the music box deep in her pockets. Christmas day comes and goes, the busy hustle of giving and being given passes in a blur of biscuits and laughter, Fritz’ hands and mouth dusted in powdered sugar, Louise smiling softly at all that she sees. Father sits at the end of the table, his mouth tilted upwards, his eyes soft. Clara hums her mother’s song all day, her feet light, her lips on her father’s cheeks.

“You’re in a good mood, darling”, he says and Clara thinks of Phillip.

She thinks of Phillip and how her hands had itched to touch him when she’d left, not enough fabric on her skin to cover the way the hairs on her arms stood up when he talked. She thinks of how his arms would feel around her, how she’d fit under his palms and into the crook of his neck, thinks of how he smells and how he smiles. She thinks of Phillip and suddenly, the corset is too tight around her chest, her key too heavy against her ribcage.

“I suppose”, she says and Fritz jumps on her back, laughing. Clara reaches for him, and gets up, bent forwards and twirling, her shrieking brother clinging onto her.

 

* * *

 

 

Her dreams are a swirl of rotting cotton candy sticking to her skin, are gold dust settling in her hair and under her finger nails. In her dreams, the Sugar Plum Fairy froze and lost her life just a bit too late, her face painted porcelain once more, and Phillip pinned against a tree, the mice gathered around him. In her dreams, she is too late.

In others, she kisses Phillip before she leaves, his lips cool and soft against hers, his hands settled on her waist. She can almost taste it, this kiss, like snow and salt and the way old walnut trees smell, can almost feel the fabric of his uniform against her fingertips, the way he’d bend down to meet her.

She wakes to the cold of London’s winter mornings, her windows wide open, curled up under the covers. Her hands are clammy, and her hair is open and splayed out on her pillows. With a deep breath, she sits up and rubs her eyes, her limbs like lead.

When her father knocks against her door, the sound of it almost too quiet, she is bent over one of godfather’s machines – a merry-go-round she’d been working on for almost half a year now, rebuilding and repurposing it. “Clara?” Her father’s voice is as soft as his hand on her shoulder and she looks up at him.

“Oh, hello father.” She smiles and still, there is a glow like gold on his skin, a glow like Phillip’s.

He pulls in a chair and sits down next to her. “So”, he says softly. “You found your key.” His eyes come to rest on her chest where the key still rests cold and golden on her clavicle. Clara reaches for it and nods.

“I did”, she says.

Her father hums and cocks his head. “I’m glad.” He looks at her properly, now, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Your mother was so worried. About everything.” He smiles.

“I hope I made her proud.”

Her father laughs softly and cups her cheeks with his hands. “You always have, Clara”, he says. “And we both knew that you could do it, you brave, wonderful girl.”

_I’m the last nutcracker_ , Phillip had said and bowed to her, and Clara had believed him. Now, her father looks at her with soft eyes and gold dusted skin and if she tilts her head just so, she can see her mother’s favourite Christmas ornament in him.


End file.
